Wayside Inn
by Eilonwy1
Summary: Kel is gone through her ordeal, and is about to be knighted... R/R!
1. Default Chapter

A/N: This takes place after Kel's ordeal, when she is about to be knighted.  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tamora Pierce  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
If her ordeal was frightening, this should be nothing. Nothing, no competition what-so-ever. Just walk up, kneel, and take the shield. After all, this is what you've been waiting for, hasn't it?   
Kelardry of Mindelan drew a deep breath and took her first step towards the rest of her life.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The King's Champion, for the first time in eight years was once more sitting by the kings side. Not that the court had really missed her. She was loud and she was well, a she. Just now they could see another crazy female striding down the carpet to take her place as a bonified nut case, just like the Lioness. The crowd remained remarkably silent while King Jonathon the 3rd swore in the new knight.  
  
"Keladry of Mindelan, are you prepared to give your oath of fealty and serve your county of Tortall, it's citizens and King for the rest of your life?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I dub thee-"  
  
"Wait." A new voice appeared in the throne room. "I have proof that Keladry of Mindelan has been given magical help by Alanna of Trebond and therefore is a cheat and a disgrace to the crown. She deserves nothing but a warrant."  
  
Alanna of Trebond had jumped out of her chair and started toward Vinson of Gareth but was restrained by a firm word and glare from the King.  
  
Kelardy of Mindelan was still kneeling when she looked back at her old foe. He gave he a smirk and said to the whole court:  
  
"The proof I have will require a mage, for it is inside Keladry herself."  
  
The court stirred and the Lioness stiffling with anger shouted to the whole court as much as Vinson,  
  
"This is ridiculous! I've only seen Kel once, and that was last night after her ordeal!"  
  
"That's right Lioness. You did see her after the Ordeal last night because you were the one to heal her after it was over, weren't you?"  
  
"Well yes, but-"  
  
"But you've never shone interest in knight's ordeals before, let alone come to heal. If you helped Keladry in this way, who is to say you have been helping her magically all along."  
  
"No! No, this is proposterous! That was the only time I've ever seen Kel before in my life. As for healing her, I did, just that one time. Even if I had helped her magically before, which I couldn't of due to a law by King Jonathon, there are no rules saying I couldn't have. So you will shut your mouth Vinson of Gareth before I come shut it for you."   
  
The King intervened,"That's enough Alanna." To the whole court he said, "I did place a order on the Lioness of no communication with Keladry of Mindelan. She has been gone from court ever since the law was placed, for eight years, now she is back, and Keladry deserves her shield so please step aside Vinson."  
  
The court of people, who were fully enjoying this witch hunt, had already convicted the obviously lying knight but decided to stick around for the full show.  
"Now, I may be mistaken sire, but is there not a spell which allows one to see the amount of magic placed in a person?"  
  
"Vinson, I told you to step aside."  
  
The crowd then began yelling, yelling to hear Vinon of Gareth out. The King waved his hands for quiet, "Alright Vinson, what are you proposing to do."  
  
The sly man took a few steps closer to the throne, "Well, I suggest we test Keladry of Mindelan and one of her year mate's magical input levels. If Keladry has around the same level as the boy then she is blame less and earned her shield herself," he put extra emphasis on his next words, "But, if she has much more we'll know she has been given her shield through someone else's magical ability."  
  
At his last word the audience seemed to come to life with conversation. Most were yelling in favor of the tests, while a select few of Kel's friends and teachers were shaking their heads and protesting, loudly. Kel herself was deathly quiet, eyes wide open.  
  
  
The King stepped forward, "Keladry of Mindelan, Merric of Hollyrose, Alanna the Lioness, Numair Salamin, and Vinson of Gareth will report to my study imeddiately." With that Jonathon of Conte walked stately out of the room, well as stately as he could manage with the Lioness pulling his arm and hissing in his ear the entire way.  
  
Merric of Hollyrose stepped forward and helped a dazed and pale Kel to her feet. When she stumbled upon getting up, he took her arm and guided her the rest of the way out. Vinson of Gareth mock bowed to Kel and Merric on their way out, and followed with a bounce in his usual slump-shouldered step. Numair Salamin on the other hand frowned, and jogged to the study, because he knew exactly what was going to happen.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: All right, that's my first chapter. So, what do you think? Review, review, review!  



	2. Chapter 2- until I think of a name (well...

A/N: Finally! Took me forever to post... I wrote it all then didn't have time to post! I loaded chp.2 and 3 I'll try to be quicker about the next 'uns. And, I know I had lots of spelling errors in the last chapter, I've tried to improve. Eck. Grammar. As Winston Churchill said: "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."

  
  


Disclaimer: All characters and credit go to Tamora Pierce.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


The study of Jonathon of Conte was an umremarkable room with unremarkable furnishings, an unremarkable view, and certainly (at least in Jonathon's opinion) less then remarkable refreshments. The others in the room that had never had so great an honor or been deep enough in trouble to enter the King's study, might have been surprised had the circomstances been any different. But they weren't- so, at present, no one really cared wether or not they the chairs were made from oak instead of rosewood.

  
  


For not caring about the view, there were sure a lot of people staring out of the window. Keladry of Mindelan was, Numair Salmalin was, and Merric of Hollyrose glanced half of the time out the window, then doggedly back to his still slightly dazed year-mate. King Jonathon played the judge, Alanna played the persecuter of Vinson, Vinson played the persecuter of Kel, Kel persecuted the window--Just. Staring.

  
  


"Merric, please come over and stand right here." -Jonathon as un-offical judge, and offical King had made his decision. He had had his qualms and argueded with himself mentally while Alanna did it for him physically.

"You cannot do this Jonathon. THIS IS MAD. I have stayed away from this girl on your orders for Eight Years, and if you do this crazy thing you can prepare yourself to be championless for a much longer then that."

  
  


"Look, the court has already heard Vinson. They hate Keladry anyways, if we can prove through this test that you haven't helped her magically then it'll be like a sock in the gut to them and Vinson of Genlith. Don't you see? They'll have no reason to criticize her anymore, because there will be proof she earned it. Kel has no reason to have extra magic in her anyways... Keladry, you don't, do you?"

Kel just glanced at the king then looked back out the window. He decided to take that for a yes and get the show on the road.

  
  


"Numair, Merric will you both please stand here. Alright, Numair. You and I will both test Merric's level, then Keladry's. If they are near the same, then we will be able to knight Kel in five minutes, and banish Vinson of Gareth in three." seeing his naming was being spoken, Vinson looked up from his feet and eyed the King distrustingly.

"Yes you Vinson. Placing a false claim on someone, a claim enough to ruin their reputation and taint my own, gives me no qualms about sending you as far away from Tortall as I can manage."

  
  


The other's in the group were warily shaking their heads at the King who was chit-chatting to no-one quickly enough that they were not able to get a word in edgewise. When he stopped for breath Numair took his chance.

"Jon, I don't think that's such a good idea. I myself have seen this girl seriously brawling no doubt getting hurt and needing lots of heali-

The King once again, maybe because he was nervous about this whole ordeal or maybe because he just didn't like being told his idea's weren't so good, cut-off Numair to begin his own ramblings, "Well, we should just try. I'm sure it will work out. Now, Merric, come here if you please."

  
  


Merric of Hollyrose grudigly stepped forward and let King Jonathon place a hand on his head. Sapphire softly glowed around the king, becoming brighter and brighter, slowly seeping into Merric. Merric had no gift and limited experience with those who did; the monarch had to tell him to "stop squrming or the spell won't work at all." Merric wasn't sure that wouldn't be a good thing.

  
  


A few seconds later the man withdrew his hand from Merric's head, looked down at it and frowned. On his palm was a light dust of (what looked like) powdered sparkles- most were the color of baked earth, and the few others consisted of various members of the spectrum.

The King simply started at his palm, "You haven't much experience with magic, have you Merric of Hollyrose?"

  
  


Merric made a face, "No, well, I've been healed by my aunt a fair amount of times; she's the brown magic. I used to fall off my horse and get scraped, or go through the woods and get-"

"Alright, alright.... Numair would you try this. Maybe my spell needs twinking."

  
  


Numair started at Jon, shook his head, and made his way over, "twinking?"

  
  


Numair resulted the same as Jonathon, finely dusted, wherein Alanna suggested she could make a few more sparkles, no-harm-done, and go show the court?.... Vinson stomped on that quickly enough, one thing led to another and the next thing you know Alanna has a bruised cheekbone and Vinson (who didn't get off as easily) has 3 nosils, no hair, and a killer olcer. Numair was peeved, Jonathon was stiffling, Merric, well frankly Merric had had an accident by now, and Kel didn't care, Kel was watching the sunset of the last day of her real life.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


After matters had been cleared up with Vinson, Kel herself had been tested,and the results were green- a heavy sparkling green. Kel was looking down at her feet- ashamed. 

  
  


"Kel, it's not that much magic but it is enough...Who has been healing you?" the King stammered.

  
  


Merric eyed Kel then explained: "Well sir, Kel decided in her first year to kind of stop the pages who were bullying the younger kids? She patroled for them every night and 1 out of 3 times, she found them. When she was hurt badly enough she would let Neal- Nealan of Queenscove, that is- heal her. He has the gift. Over the years, I'm afraid she got in quite a few brawls, it slowed down as a squire,where she went with Lord Raoul didn't give her any less cause to be healed. Didn't you hear about the attack on the Copper Islands?"

  
  


"Yes, yes. Well, is there anybody else who can prove this?"

  
  


Without waiting for the answer King Jonathon called a herald outside the door and told him to fetch Lord Wyldon, Nealan of Queenscove and any boys he says are friends of Keladry of Mindelan. 

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


The ladies and gentlemen of the court were tiread, it had been 15 minutes since the King had left them with no entertainment. They were tired and they were tired of being bored. But, gossip truimphs boredom and they would wait for a an hour, if need be, just to say they were there. Just to say they had seen the last to try for Lady Knighthood fall. They would see Keladry of Mindelan gone for gossips sake.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


The boys from the study hall had been summoned and prodded and poked with questions of no real relitivity. Lord Wyldon had also been summoned to the questioners, "Well of course I caught her fighting. Well, no not during the fight, but right after. Proof? Well, I saw her didn't I? She was dead on her feet wasn't she? No, she didn't say she fought, she said she fell down, which is about the most dull excuse I have ever heard off a page or squire."

  
  


Vinson of course came in on cue, "She never said she fought?"

"N-"

"I thought so. Had it ever occured to you Lord Wyldon that maybe Keladry was speaking the truth?Why would she lie to you about falling if what she had really done was something honorably like stopping ruthless bullies? There is no shame in that, and no shame in falling down. But there is shame in accepting magical help, magic digusied in a color other then the Lioness's true color, for precaution, in case someone might test Keladry, just like we are now. There is shame indeed."

  
  


"Oh please Vinson. 'There is shame indeed'." spoke up Cleon, "Kel fought you, you big-" 

Numair coughed loudly and shot Cleon a warning look, if they were going to get somewhere calling him a *cough* wouldn't do it.

  
  


The boys then gave Numair a look that clearly said 'shut-it' and began to the attack of accusations, on Vinson.

  
  


Kel stared out of the window, stars were in the sky, but there was no moon.

  
  


King Jonathon tried to clam the group, Numair ignored the group and Alanna joined in. Somewhere in the middle of it all, it became a fight with the king to stop telling them to calm down when he had no right to be as calm as he was, that in it self merited a good slap upside his 4xbyx4 head. Something like that.

  
  


Now Vinson may have been mean and dumb and sneaky but he knew enough about fights to know this one was going to last for at least another 2 minutes. Vinson sneaked away from the group, stretched his tunic in front of his in a bowl shape and scooped all the level magic dust (which had been triald several times, and final placed on the desk for comparison) into the front of his clothing. All Kel's and Merric dust was a bit heavy and he had to be careful not to drop the front of his shirt as he slid out the study down and ran down to the thrown room where the entire court was waiting.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


4/2 minutes later

  
  


"No, and I happen to think Paul is a very nice middle nam-" Owen was cut off from a sharp jab in the stomach by Neal's elbow, looked around slowly, then echoed what everyone else was thinking but no one had said, "He's gone."

  
  
  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Hope you liked; and review! Yo necessito mucho um, reviews. Sooory, don't know the Spanish word for reviews... 

  
  



	3. A/N: I mock chapter titles! (because I ...

A/N: Here 'tis. Took me so long to get up due to school, you know all that stuff. Enjoy! And review!

  
  


Disclaimer: All characters and credit belong to Tamora Pierce.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

  
  


Kel looked up from the safety the window provided and stared at the bunch. As if signaled by Owen's last words she sprang up and tore after where Vinson had, presumably, headed. The others followed her suit (even the King) and soon their was a large group of people sliding down the corridors of Tortall's royal place. The distance from the study to the throne room is roughly 5 minutes of a walk, it had taken Kel 1'1/2 (Owen had collapsed not to far back from exhaustion).

  
  


The group was brought to a halt at a pair of dark wooden doors, inlaid with gold. Keladry slowly pulled open the right door;

  
  


"disguised her magic's color green, from her original purple, to make it look like she'd never given any help at all," a loud voice greedily filled the entire room. "But she was not the only one to magically aid this squire, look at all the brown in this pile of dust." As Kel peered farther in she spotted her dust and Merric's, 4 trials from each Numair and the King, worth of it. That was a lot of magic. 

  
  


Vinson stood in the center of an enraptured audience of the wealthiest, most important people in Tortall. 

  
  


The King looked through the door and was slowly shaking his head. Alanna face was turning the color of her hair. Numair had on an in sufferable- I KNEW this was going to happen- face. Neal looked ashamed, Merric looked ashamed, Owen was flabbergasted, Kel looked ready to march right in there-- and start crying. Everyone else was staring in through the doorway.

  
  


Jonathon turned and took Kel aside. "Keladry, I-I... I don't know what to do..."

Then Vinson's voice boomed once again through the doorway,

  
  


"What kind of king has a champion who cheated her way through knighthood? What kind of king allows a woman to be a knight? What kind of king lets his champion magic a page through knighthood, a girl page?"

  
  


The audience, from what the group could see of them, were lapping it up. Because that is exactly what they had been wanting to hear-gossip.

  
  


The king turned back to Kel. "This puts me in a really difficult position...I know I can't just refuse you your shield, but I know I can't let my entire court, the most important people in my country, I can't have them thinking I'm a cheating fool."

  
  


"Maybe it'd be best if you went away for awhile Keladry. You could come back in 10 or 15 years and we could knight you then, when everything's cooled down- in a small ceremony..."

  
  


Kel was mouthing the word 'wait'. 

  
  


"No! No. That's not fair- I mean that's- it's not-- I won't! What am I suppose to do? Go right on back to the life I have turned away from? It's to late now! I can't just go back, and I can't just change my life completely, completely into something I will loathe- like a convent- and then come pick my real life right back up where I left it 15 years ago in a throne room. It doesn't work that way, I will have commitments to the other life, just like I wanted commitments to this one." 

  
  


"I'm sorry Keladry I can't-" 

Another voice broke the king off "Oh, I see the perpetrating group is outside this very door- listening in. Would you care to come in- Keladry of Mindelan- and defend yourself?"

  
  


Kel jogged to the door- away from the King and walked in.

  
  


"I can't believe any of you would take this man seriously so let me tell you the truth-"

  
  


Vinson cut her off "I truth, Keladry of Mindelan, has already been told, with evidence before my very feet to back it up. If you are going to say anything, Mindelan, I suggest it be goodbye.

  
  


The court was nodding and clapping for Vinson.

  
  


Kel tried speaking again but the crowd only clapped louder. She glanced frantically around her but she was friendless in this court. So she screamed- 

"FINE!" They hushed. "Fine. You want me to she goodbye? Well I won't, because you will be seeing me again. I'm not quitting, I'll never quite. But I will save you the trouble of turning me down my shield because I refuse it! I will not take something as important as this if it is begrudgingly given and there-fore, tainted. But, I'll be seeing you again. So in the mean-time I suggest you adapt."

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


A/N: Well, what do you think? Review, or else- I mean, Pleasssssseeeeeeeee.

I'll try and get the next one up quicker, school is forever at me.

  
  


Much Thanks,

Elli


End file.
